Last week, Steve Jelbert profiled Super High Me for The Times of London, highlighting B-Side’s Roll Your Own Screening program. The article, titled Super High Me reveals the secrets of a rolling stoner, opens with the choice teaser:

For once the heads have got it together. A documentary that began life as an offhand gag from America’s “second-best pot comic” (as rated by the toker’s bible High Times) has made a tiny bit of cinema history.

The previous week, Doug Benson and I spoke with Steve about Super High Me. Steve has an interesting background for a journalist, and talking with him was a gas. He grasped on to the idea of Roll Your Own as an exercise in “motivating the supposedly unmotivated.”

The article contains a great overview of the story behind the film from Doug’s POV. It also has a nice overview of Roll Your Own:

The film holds the record for the widest documentary opening ever. It was shown in more than 1,000 venues on the holiest day of the smoking year, April 20, 4/20 in American parlance. Supposedly named for the after-school meeting time of a gang of Californian teen-agers in the Seventies, 4:20 is now a universal smokers’ code. Knowing that the film could not get television advertising or a wide release, the producers approached the indie marketing and distribution specialists b-side, which simply made screening copies available to anyone who wanted one and could offer premises.

“We thought: ‘Let’s not even try to make money’,” says Chris Hyams of b-side. “The real question was ‘Can you get stoners off the couch?’

“Any dark room with places to sit can become a movie theatre, but we were stunned by the array of ideas and venues people came up with.”

From college campuses to comedy clubs, sympathisers joined in. An Illinois couple showed the film at their wedding reception. A San Fran-cisco “guerilla drive-in” outfit projected it on the wall of a local store.

“There’s hundreds of MBAs sitting round studios wondering how they can, quote, ‘make something go viral’,” says Hyams, the scion of a film family (his father is director Peter, his brother John an acclaimed documentary maker). The marketing budget for Super High Me was supposedly the same as the cost of a 2in advertisement in The New York Times. Judd Apatow’s forthcoming “weed action movie” Pineapple Express will not come so cheap.

Check out the full article here.

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Well, this is officially the first time the word "Boffo" has been used in conjunction with B-Side. Richard Horgan of FilmStew wrote a nice piece last week on B-Side’s Roll Your Own Screening program for Super High Me. The very generous subtitle reads:

Although Super High Me’s grassroots exploits are of an entirely different nature than Indiana Jones’ imminent record-busting totals, they deserve to be celebrated just as loudly.

The story includes a good summary of the numbers behind the program:

From April 20th through this past Tuesday, May 20th, there were a total of 1,576 grassroots screenings in 975 cities (with 1,076 of those taking place on opening day). Events ranged from private parties for 20 people to public screenings at 2,000-plus seat auditoriums.

… as well as an interesting analysis we did comparing the attendance for our opening day (4/20) with the opening weekends of the top-grossing documentaries of all time:

"Our opening weekend attendance is greater than six of the top ten grossers of all time (including March of the Penguins, Sicko and Winged Migration), which had more typical platform release patterns. It’s worth noting also that Super High Me’s opening attendance is tallied from one day, and primarily single screenings, compared to three days with 4-5 screenings per day for traditional exhibition," [Hyams] continues. "Considering that the vast majority of films spend more on marketing than they earn in gross theatrical revenue, this level of attendance for a documentary is unprecedented. Even before taking into account the marketing budget for Super High Me, which was less than $5,000."

The last point is really the key behind B-Side’s exhibition model, what we call Groundswell. Yes, our screenings are free, so there is no box office. However, according to the MPAA’s annual research statistics, most — if not all — movies lose money during their theatrical run.

In 2006, the theatrical marketing costs for the average studio film was $34.5 million. That same average film grossed $32.7 million at the box office. Once you factor in the 50/50 box office split with exhibitors (theater owners), you have a pretty unattractive business. And while you’re at it, factor in the $65.8 million production cost for that same average film. That leaves the golden ratio of $4 spent on production and $2 spent on marketing for every $1 in gross theatrical revenue. Yikes.

So why is it that studios even bother releasing films in theaters? Trust me, it’s not because of the magical communal experience of sitting in a dark room together. Sure, that might be why we go, but to these guys it’s just math. 2/3 of industry-wide revenues are from DVD sales. Most films generate gross DVD revenues roughly equivalent to box office — but without the pesky 50/50 split with theaters (retailers take less than 25% of DVD sale price). The rub, of course, is that no one has figured out how to sell $100 million worth of DVDs without first doing $100 million at the box office. (Forget for the moment the Disney straight-to-DVD machine).

So for us, the idea was pretty simple. If everyone else loses so much money trying to make money at the box office, what if we just tried to not lose money? Could we get the same benefits without any of the risk?

By turning exhibition over to fans — the community — we have found a way to get some of that dark theater communal magic, plus a whole bunch of press and buzz, without spending all that money. And the results have been pretty amazing so far:

• widest ever single day opening of a documentary (1,076 screens vs. Fahrenheit 9/11’s 868)
• higher opening weekend attendance than more than half the top-grossing docs of all time (see above)
• peaked at #29 on Google Trends Hot 100 searches across the US.

And then there’s this:

Meanwhile, over on Netflix, whose Red Envelope Entertainment was a producer on the film, Super High Me is, according to Red Envelope exec Liesl Copland, "tracking better than some of the best reviewed films of the year [that we've been involved with]."

So the real proof will come on June 17, when the Super High Me DVD streets. Until then, I’m flattered to hear Richard describe our campaign as "nothing short of groundbreaking."

Check out the full story here.

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A nice little piece from G4 on our Roll Your Own Screening program for Super High Me:

Since this was a smaller, independent film with little to no advertising budget, the innovators over at B-Side Entertainment decided to approach distribution of the film differently. [...] If you had a projector, a DVD player, and a few friends you could order a copy of the movie on DVD early and host a screening at your house, apartment, or shady back alley. Thanks to this, Super High Me screened in 1,076 different locations on April 20th, surpassing the 868 theaters that Fahrenheit 911 opened in. Now yes, these weren’t all theaters, so technically no records were broken, but coming from a film with zero marketing expense and no media buys at all, this grassroots campaign appears to be a huge success.

Read the full story here.

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Mike Stuckey of MSNBC spoke to Super High Me producer Alex Campbell and I last week. His story published today on msnbc.com looks at the commercialization of 420. While the article takes a skeptical view of both pot-smoking and the varied attempts to cash in on the 420 phenomenon, we get a nice shout-out for our efforts.

Stuckey declares the B-Side Roll Your Own Screening campaign "the most ambitious 420-linked marketing campaign," directly contrasting it with the latest Harold and Kumar. He generously points out that Harold and Kumar distributor New Line Cinema is "a Hollywood powerhouse, a Time Warner company with over $1 billion in annual revenue and deals throughout the entertainment world that include NBC and Microsoft, msnbc.com’s parent companies."

Such devotion to 420 festivities has grabbed the attention of filmmakers with projects about pot, or featuring it. “Totally Baked,” a mockumentary written and produced by comedian Craig Shoemaker, premiered on April 20, 2007, and is being distributed on DVD just after 420 this year.

“Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo,” a comedy featuring John Cho and Kal Penn as a pair of hapless pot smokers, is being released April 25, and will be promoted with a prominent advertising campaign and other 420 content on the High Times Magazine Web site. “Harold and Kumar’s” maker, New Line Cinema, is a Hollywood powerhouse, a Time Warner company with over $1 billion in annual revenue and deals throughout the entertainment world that include NBC and Microsoft, msnbc.com’s parent companies.

But the most ambitious 420-linked marketing campaign belongs to the makers of “Super High Me,” who are giving away DVD copies of the film to anyone who promises to air a public or private showing of it on April 20. The documentary parody of the fast-food film “Super Size Me” follows comedian Doug Benson as he first abstains from marijuana for 30 days and then smokes as much as he can for the next 30 days, taking physical, psychological and SAT tests during both periods.

“We’ve got 401 screenings scheduled right now” for April 20, said Chris Hyams of B-Side, an entertainment technology company that is helping market and distribute the film. “By the time of the event we expect 800.”

Hyams had to talk film producer Alex Campbell into the ploy. “My first instinct was there’s no way I’m going to give this movie away for free,” Campbell said. “I’m an independent filmmaker and I haven’t made any money on it. But he said he then got to thinking that “people are going to watch it, they’re going to love it, they’re going to buy it.”

The interview was barely a week ago, but we’re way past the ‘hoping for 800′ mark, with over 1,000 screenings officially booked.

Read the full story here.

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Spent the morning with 101X’s Ray Seggern (aka Raydog) talking about our Roll Your Own Screening program. Ray is a big supporter of the local Austin indie film scene, and highlights filmmakers on a regular basis. The interview segment audio is all posted here.

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Our friend Mike Jones at Variety wrote a nice piece on today’s Super High Me announcement.

This is the kind of alternative distribution news that defines SXSW.

Announced at the film’s SXSW screening, B-Side, Red Envelope and Screen Media Films have partnered to distribute Michael Blieden’s stoner doc, “Super High Me,” where the director documents comedian Doug Benson’s journey to smoke pot for 30 days straight while monitoring his medical condition.

In a unique arrangement, the partnership will roll out grassroots screening events, giving free DVDs of the film to anyone that wants to hold their own public screening — with any sized group.

Those interested can go to superhighmemovie.com to “roll your own.” Once they’ve completed the signup, their event will show up on a list of other free screenings. They’ll be sent a DVD and promotion assistance.

The hope is the campaign will fuel DVD sales of the doc.

The idea follows the success of the 2006 doc “Before the Music Dies,” which screened at 300 fan-hosted events across North America.

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